The Moonlandingz at Bristol Trinity

Sometimes, seeing a band with no prior knowledge or preconceptions can be a disappointment and a waste of money... but sometimes, happily, it can be one of the best gigs in years, which was the case with The Moonlandingz last week in Bristol.
My mate Glenn had a spare ticket for this gig and recommended the band so I jumped in the car with Glenn, Gail and, er, Barry ( possibly ) and his dog ( it's some indication of my age that I can't remember this guy's name a week later... ) and headed down to Bristol. Specifically to the Trinity Centre, an old converted church that I'd strangely never visited before, but which  -  after much frustrating searching for a parking space  -  turned out to be a really cool venue.

Support came from a young band called Sweat who played some very upbeat, pop-inflected indie. Although still at the "talking to your mates in the audience" stage and employing a little too much ill-advised autotune they had a great sound and are certainly a band to watch.
And then The Moonlandingz landed...

Apparently The Moonlandingz were a "fictional" band, created for some kind of art project involving Sean Lennon, who enjoyed being together so much that they went on to become a "real" band and actually put out records, tour and do the other things that real bands do. ( Which probably accounts for the late start of their set... ) Well they certainly seemed ( sur )real on the night...

They played a frenzied mixture of electro pop, psychedelia and rock 'n' roll, blurring genres right left and centre and kicking up a hell of a racket in the process. Front man Lias Saoudi wandered onto the stage carrying a bottle of wine and wearing what looked like his dad's old suit from the 1970s and then proceeded to give one of the most deranged performances I've seen in an age. After the first, relatively low-key, song the band launched into the sky-scraping Black Hanz and the gig took off like an electrobilly rocket bound for the Planet Gonzo. Shaking, twitching, screaming and bouncing around the stage, Lias stripped his rail-thin torso bare ( much to the delight of many in the audience ) and reminded us all how exciting a proper rock star can still be in this age of bland, corporate "acts".

Behind all this lunacy the band were super tight  -  the bassist was the spitting image of a younger Bill Bailey and was cool as frack, the keyboard player contributed some sonorous vocals as well as some cosmic sounds maaan, while the perma-pouting guitarist Mairead O'Connor was a fretboard goddess. And the drummer was a drummer. Actually he was pretty bloody good too.
Amongst the highlights were the Glam stomp of Vessels, the Cramps-gone-Kraftwerk of Glory Hole and the twisted singalong pop of The Rabies Are Back. At one point the bass guitar died and had to be replaced, prompting Lias to lead the band and the audience in an acapella folk song about "shovelling shite"  -  I remarked to Glenn that, alone in this crowd of urban hipsters, I was probably the only person with actual shite-shovelling experience.

For the epic Velvets-referencing, girl-group-gone-bad ballad The Strangle Of Anna, Lias invited half of the female population of Bristol onstage to sing along with him. On record the vocals are handled by the awesome Rebecca Taylor from Slow Club ( it's the Sheffield connection ) and the ladies who filled in for her weren't quite up to her vocal standard but had great fun none the less, as pictures show. The quietly fuming security bloke at the side of the stage wasn't having so much fun...

All too soon we were told "you won't like it but this is our last song" and, after an insane Man In Me Lyfe with Lias virtually bellowing his lungs out onto the stage and the crowd going equally nuts, the short but sweet 50 minute set was over with no encore. Talk about leaving 'em wanting more!
Without a doubt one of the best gigs of the year and that ain't no fiction...